Robin Chapman posts a poem, most days, from fellow poets with one of her watercolors.

7/05/2007

American Life in Poetry: Column 119

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

I'm especially attracted to poems that describe places I might not otherwise visit, in the manner of good travel writing. I'm a dedicated stay-at-home and much prefer to read something fascinating about a place than visit it myself. Here the Hawaii poet, Joseph Stanton, describes a tree that few of us haveseen but all of us have eaten from.

Banana Trees

They are tall herbs, really, not trees,though they can shoot up thirty feetif all goes well for them. Cut in cross

section they look like gigantic onions,multi-layered mysteries with ghostly hearts.Their leaves are made to be broken by the wind,

if wind there be, but the crosswise tearsthey are built to expect do them no harm.Around the steady staff of the leafstalk

know how to grasp with their broken fingersthe gold coins of light that give open airits shine. In hot, dry weather the fingers

fold down to touch on each side--a kind of prayer to clasp what damp they canagainst the too much light.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright (c) 2006 by Joseph Stanton. Reprinted from "A Field Guide to the Wildlife of Suburban O'ahu," Time Being Books, 2006, with permission of the publisher. Introduction copyright (c) 2006 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet LaureateConsultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. ******************************